With Benefits
by em2706
Summary: Follows on from Mutual Understanding, Interlude and Convergence. Christy's attempt to drown her sorrows in solitude is thwarted by Sabin's insistence on an explanation for her behaviour.


Christy sighed, absently pushing her straw around in her cocktail. She hadn't had the best day; she'd been irritable and foul-tempered, and she knew she was going to have to make a number of apologies when she went into work the following day. Christy made a point of apologising when she knew she'd done wrong, and she felt she was a better person for it, but she still hated doing it.

She was the only TNA employee in this particular bar. She'd made sure to choose one the others weren't fond of, because she had no desire to either pretend to be in a good mood, or risk adding to the list of people she needed to apologise to. The only thing she wanted to do was sit in this booth in grumpy silence while she downed a few cocktails, and then slink off to the hotel and go to bed in the vain hope that she woke up feeling a little better. She continued to stare morosely into her drink. Today was definitely a write-off.

She had her hair pulled back in a messy ponytail and her baseball cap pulled low over her face in an attempt to be as unremarkable and unnoticeable as possible, but when you were Christy Hemme, you could only deflect so much attention. She heard and felt someone slide into the booth beside her, and she clenched her jaw in annoyance. She was pretty sure it was obvious that she wasn't interested in being picked up, but there was a certain breed of men who were still arrogant enough to assume that any woman's lack of interest only meant they needed more persuading.

She drew in a breath to tell her unwanted companion to go fuck himself, but upon looking around at him she found Sabin placing his drink on the table next to hers. She couldn't say she was pleased to see him, but she was loathe to tell him to get lost. He was already on the apology list.

"So," he asked amiably, "what the fuck's your problem today?"

Christy rolled her eyes, unable to reign in her venomous mood. "Maybe I just don't want to do it anymore."

"Maybe," Sabin agreed. "But if that's the case, all you have to do is say so, and you know that. You know we're not about to give you a hard time if you want to call it a day, so there's no need for you to be such a raging bitch about it." Despite his flippant tone and the half-smile on his face, his eyes betrayed the fact that he was none too pleased about their encounter earlier in the day.

Christy was reluctant to answer, although her bad temper was fading into embarrassment and regret. "Look, I'm sorry, okay? Really. And I promise when I say it again tomorrow, it'll sound a lot less petulant." She glanced over his shoulder, half expecting to find Shelley waiting in the wings. "Where's Alex?"

Sabin slouched back, not taking his eyes off her. "Back at the hotel, hanging out with some of the guys. He has this whole thing about not intruding on a woman who's made it known she doesn't want him, but I figure, you're not a delicate little flower. There's no reason I should treat you any differently than if you were a guy, and if a male friend had snapped at me like that, I'd want to know what the hell his deal was. So?"

She still hesitated, but Christy felt that Sabin deserved an explanation. Neither he nor Shelley had done anything out of the ordinary; when they'd got her alone at work they'd reached for her, just the same as they always did. Usually, Christy eagerly accepted their playful advances, but today she had wrenched herself away from them, snarling disdainfully for them to get off her. The situation between them had been going on for a couple of months now, and they'd never disrespected her or tried to push her into anything, so she had no reason to lash out at them instead of simply saying no, and she knew it.

Christy sighed. "I had a blowout with my best friend."

"Ah. I know what that's like." Despite his irritation with her, Sabin smiled sympathetically, and Christy felt even worse for having bitten his head off earlier. "Anything you want to talk about?"

"She's... well, she's not like me. About sex." Christy went back to pushing her straw around in her drink, watching the liquid swirl around it to avoid looking at Sabin. "She knows about what's been going on - not who it's been going on with, but she knows the general situation. I mean, she's my best friend, of course I'm going to tell her, right? She pretty much thinks I'm a whore for letting two guys who don't care about me fuck me repeatedly."

Sabin sat forward, crossing his arms and leaning them on the edge of the table. "There are so many things wrong with that statement, I don't know where to start."

Christy smiled over at him, but she met his gaze only fleetingly before looking away again. "It's okay. I know how I feel about sex, and I know how I feel about the things we do. It's just..."

"She's your best friend," Sabin finished, nodding his understanding. "You don't want her to disapprove of you."

"Exactly. I mean, how would you feel if Alex looked down on something you did?"

Sabin was briefly silent. When he finally spoke, he looked more awkward than Christy could ever recall having seen him previously. "There are some things Alex does that... well, I really fucking hate them."

Christy looked up in surprise, watching Sabin curiously as he became as reticent to make eye contact as she had been moments before. "Really?"

"Yeah. I hate them. We've argued about them endlessly and wound up in some pretty nasty fights over them, and now we've reached the point where we basically just don't talk about them."

Christy shifted uncomfortably. As intrigued as she was, she wasn't about to ask Sabin for any details; if he wanted to tell her, he would. "I wouldn't have guessed. You seem to think so much of him."

"I do, that's the whole point." Sabin looked up at her, although Christy could see how uneasy he still was with the topic. "I disapprove of some things he does more than I could ever tell you, but that doesn't mean I disapprove of _him_. He's my best friend, and I think the world of him. Having a problem with something he does, even a really big problem, hasn't changed that."

Silence reigned for several minutes, while Christy turned this over in her head and Sabin lost himself in his own less than pleasant thoughts. Christy eventually shoved the topic aside, letting her subconscious mind have at it while she cut herself a break. On paying attention to her surroundings again, she found her eyes were focused on the parts of Sabin's thighs visible before his legs disappeared under the table, wrapped as they were in stonewashed denim. When he wore jeans, they were always a pretty baggy cut; other styles simply didn't fit around his obscenely powerful thighs, while baggy ones merely clung to his thighs temptingly. Christy had already amassed a dizzying collection of memories centred around his legs - the way they felt against the backs of her own when he took her from behind, how strong they felt against her sides when she knelt between them to lavish attention on him with her lips and tongue, the way she could feel the muscles in them bunch and flex when she wrapped her calves around them while he moved inside her. She nudged him with her elbow.

"I really appreciate you. You're not going to take what I said earlier to heart, are you?"

Sabin grinned. "Sweetheart, if you want me to, for example, bang the living hell out of you, all you ever have to do is ask."

"Thank God for that. I genuinely am sorry." Christy worried briefly at her bottom lip with her teeth. "Do you think Alex will be okay with it when I apologise?"

"He won't even ask you for an explanation." Sabin took her hand, rubbing reassuring circles on the back of it with his thumb. "Alex lives very much in the moment. As long as you let him know you want him, that's all he'll need."

Christy smiled. "I hope you're right. I'll apologise anyway."

Sabin returned her smile, and then he turned serious again. "What you said earlier... we might not be involved in a romantic relationship, but you don't really believe we don't care about you, do you?"

Christy weighed her words, trying to find the right ones. "Not really. I mean, I know if it ever came down to a choice between me and any of the Z-Boys, I'd be on the losing end, but I also know you're at least a little fond of me."

"I won't speak for Alex," Sabin began, "but personally, I'm _very_ fond of you." He turned her hand around in his own, bringing it to his lips and pressing a gentle kiss to the backs of her fingers.

It was such an unexpected gesture from someone who normally treated her like one of the guys, and Christy felt heat building in her cheeks as she blushed. She was immensely grateful to have such understanding friends. "You're just trying to get me to deepthroat you again," she joked.

Sabin grinned slyly, content to yield to her wishes and let her change the subject. "Is it working?" His hand slipped beneath the table, stealing slowly over her knee and up her thigh.

Christy felt the familiar heat in her groin and she knew she was already becoming wet. She and Sabin were hardly new lovers anymore, and it impressed her that her body still immediately started preparing itself for him when he touched her. She didn't know how long that would continue, but she wondered whether her physical association with Shelley was partly responsible for it - whether Sabin's touch maintained its instant excitement because it wasn't the only one she received. Shelley's caress still had an immediate effect too, but not at all the same one.

"I..." she began to reply, but she couldn't finish because Sabin had leaned in, his lips teasing softly against her own, barely making contact before inching away just far enough to break the kiss before it even started, forcing her to seek him out if she wanted it to continue. Christy's instincts took control, and before she'd even consciously registered that he wanted her to reach for him, her arms were around Sabin's neck and she could feel him smiling as she kissed him hungrily. He tugged her baseball cap off when it got in the way, tossing it onto the table before letting his hands settle on her ribs.

After a few brief moments - far too brief for Christy's liking - he ended the kiss and pulled her close to rest her head on his shoulder. "I hope you're not going to let your friend's feelings about sex colour your own. You're so... I don't know, candid, I guess. Honest. You give so much of yourself, and so unconditionally. I know it's selfish of me, but I think it'd be a shame if that changed."

Christy wrapped her arms around Sabin's waist, linking her fingers together over his hip. "No, I know how I feel. Anyway, you and Alex are pretty disarming, even if I did decide to repress myself I don't think I'd be able to keep any barriers between myself and you guys for long."

Sabin kissed her forehead. "Want to come back to the hotel? You can let Alex know you still want him, and then he and I can make sure the evening ends on a better note for you than it started on."

With a rueful smile, Christy sat back and shook her head, looking down at her hands. "I don't think there'd be a whole lot of unconditional giving going on if I spent the night with you two. Everything's too raw tonight. I'd be too needy."

"Sweetheart, if you don't want to have sex with me and Alex tonight, or with just one of us, then we're not going to pressure you, or take offence. But if you _do_ want to, Alex and I would be more than happy to take care of you." Sabin put a finger under Christy's chin, making her look up at him. "I know mostly all we do is fuck, but we're friends, Christy. You can rely on us when you need someone."

Christy forced herself not to look away, though she felt touched enough by Sabin's words that maintaining eye contact with him was uncomfortable. "Don't you think it's a little bold to make that offer for Alex as well as yourself, under the circumstances?"

Sabin shrugged. "I know Alex. When he realises you need a little support, he's going to be on a mission to make you forget everything other than how secure he can make you feel. So what do you say?"

Casting a glance sideways at her glass, still half full, Christy hesitated only a moment before she smiled up at Sabin. "Let's go back to the hotel. I should bite the bullet and apologise to Alex."

Sabin slid out of the booth, leaving his drink untouched on the table. He held a hand out to her. "I'll tag along for moral support." He helped Christy out of the booth, and briefly squeezed her fingers in reassurance before releasing her hand and slapping her ass hard enough to make her yelp in surprise. He grinned, and picked up the baseball cap she'd forgotten about. "And for the fantastic sex afterwards."


End file.
